eBay Snubs Smaller Sellers in Favor of Large Retailers

eBay is continuing to provoke it’s user base with big changes to it’s business model it seems. If the recent fee hikes were not enough to get sellers on eBay mad, they are furious over the deal eBay struck with Buy.com that allows the company to sell millions of books, DVDs, electronics and other items on eBay without paying the full eBay fees. This is making it hard for small sellers to compete. Since the beginning of the year over five million fixed-price listings from Buy.com have been added.

The reason behind this shift seems to be that eBay’s growth has slowed recently and new CEO John Donahoe, has decided that the future lies with a model more along Amazon’s design and larger sellers as opposed to the small mom and pop sellers that have made eBay such a success. You can read the tale in full over at nytimes.com

Like Obi-Wan said about Mos Eisley, “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be

cautious”. eBay has certainly had it’s shares of trouble makers on the site. Scam artists, Phishers, and con men have run roughshod over good sellers and customers alike. It’s been a good year since I bought anything on eBay because of the hassle of having to look at a seller from every angle to figure out if they are legit. Even worse than that is buyers that would run up the price on an item to retail. You can still get a good deal, but you have to be patient and ready to spend lots of time shopping.

I’m just not into that. Given the number of sites complaining about eBay it looks like a number of others are not happy with them either.

Are you still a big user of eBay? Tell me what you like and dislike about the eBay of today.

Comments

Selling on ebay has gotten incredibly unpleasant. Yes we've mentioned the double/triple fees from listing, to purchase, to paypal. Sellers have very few rights, and if an item sells and the customer does a chargeback, the seller has NO recourse and simply must let them steal the item sold. Plus they can hold the money made on the sale for two weeks or more, for no damn reason, and not being able to call out a scam bidder in the feedback is ridiculous.

I don't know what everyone else is complaining about. I can still find plenty of good deals on ebay. For example, it's pretty easy to grab a like new set of Klipsch Promedia 2.1's on ebay for well under $100 including shipping. Check newegg or bestbuy and you'll be paying over $150.

Plus Ebay is a GREAT place to find non-retail items, old stuff, and used stuff. On ebay you can stumble across all kinds of insteresting good deals. Like for example you can sometimes find great deals on sample merchandise that is not meant for retail sale but is identical to the retail items.

Now as for the actually subject of the article, in general I don't like ebay catering to the big guys. Ebay will lose it's usefulness if it becomes just another retail store rather than a place where anyone can sell something. That said, the sellers who are trying to compete on the same level with retail are not the kinds of sellers I'm intereted in buying from. The sellers I want to buy from are the ones who can significantly undercut retail by selling used items, non-retail items, hard-to-find items, stuff obtained cheaply in estate auctions, sample items, etc.

I have seen eBay grow by leaps and bounds since the mid 90's. Now, like most companies, it's got a swollen head. Since I sold my museum I haven't been on eBay much at all except for a few times to find specific things, but my wife is on there every day shopping for antique poison bottles ( thanks to an episode of Cash and Treasures on the Travel Channel) Now she has a very expensive hobby.

But yes, now everyone either bids real stupid or "snipes" it at the end. This has become such a common place that now there is sniping software or services you can purchace to place your "winning" bid at the last second, litteraly. Now, this doesnt mean that the item sells for cheap. No no, not at all. On saught after collectables, the price may stay stagnit for 6.9 days, and on the 11th our, the snipers come out of the woodwork and just jack it up to street price or above ( depending on who is after it and who much green they bring to the table...or KB rather).

It's still a good place to find things, but the corporate crap they are pulling now is just the next sign of the companies changing ways. We either accept it, or leave it and hope that enough people leave to send them a message. But, seeing what happened after the last "strike", I dont think that will happen.

I've been a fan of eBay, ever since I bought a mint, in box, copy of Starsiege Tribes for $12 (including shipping) ---when Best Buy was still carrying it for $50.

The sellers who just can't quite describe their item accurately and the buyers who run up the sale price 300% in the last 30 minutes were always frustrating.

What's scary, to me, is that the last CEO retired with, like a Billion $.

I'm sure she made some of that, elsewhere, but it makes it extremely hard for me to believe that ther rate increases have been about anything but maximizing margins and setting new profit records.

It's very unfortunate that eBay chooses to use the occasional experiences with the unscupulous, that we all have on eBay --to push up their profits and encourage large sellers (who are more likely to make buyers pay premiums on services, rather that being truly competitive).

Craigslist is a long way from being the "place to find everything and anything" that eBay has been.

In the early days I used to buy and sell a lot on ebay. Lately is sucks, prices are retail or higher, especially after you pay the sellers outrages shipping and handling charges. I too have had to raise the handling charges I tack on because of the fees ebay makes everyone pay. There are still deals on there, but nothing like it used to be. Now I mainly use it to buy items that are hard to find, or when I find a deal that is almost to good to be true.

From a sellers stand point - As stated, the ebay/paypal fees have gotten ridiculous! The new rules not allowing sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers is insane. I fully believe in "one man's trash is another man's treasure" and that's what made ebay what it is. Now, if selling something small that goes for basically nothing, it's useless to a seller after paying all the fees b/c they either did not make anything or come out paying. Ebay used to be all about getting rid of things you didn't want anymore and paying a small fee for someone else to enjoy. Having a nice competion to drive the price up was great. Now everyone just waits until the last minute to put in bids and items do not go for as much.

From a buyers perspective -Ebay used to be all about finding little things that you couldn't find anywhere else. You couldn't beat the prices of finding used items, or even new items at that, at discount. Now there are too many businesses that sell Buy It Now items and they are usually no deal! There have always been shady sellers but a wise buyer will almost always stay away from them.

Craigslist is good but it doesn't offer the worldwide, auction type of site that made ebay what it used to be.

I just closed my accounts for ebay. I used to buy and sell alot there. The rating system change is bad. The prices for selling are bad. You now can lose a lot of money because buy is always refunded even if you do not get your product back.

As a buy they no longer have the things I look for like real vintage stuff and collectables. Most of the sellers there now are real shops that you can get the same thing for locally without the shipping fees. The new people in charge there have ruined it and I hope they see that by drops in sales.

Will we ever see something that is compatable with what ebay was? I hope so. If anyone knows of a place please inform.